"But how can you be certain it will fetch a thousand guineas?" I
interrupted.

   "I happen to know the man whoth going to buy it."  He winked, and I
understood.

   "A fortnight later there will be a thale of half-a-dothen, and the
prithe will be gone up by that time."

   "And after that?" I said.

   "After that," he replied, rising, "the American millionaire! He'll
jutht be waiting on the door-thtep for the thale-room to open."

   "If by any chance I come across a Hoppner?" I said, laughing, as I
turned to go.

   "Don't you hold on to it too long, that'th all," was his advice.

   The argument of the late Herr Wagner was that grand opera—the music
drama, as he called it—included, and therefore did away with the
necessity for—all other arts. Music in all its branches, of course,
it provides:  so much I will concede to the late Herr Wagner. There
are times, I confess, when my musical yearnings might shock the late
Herr Wagner—times when I feel unequal to following three distinct
themes at one and the same instant.

   "Listen," whispers the Wagnerian enthusiast to me, "the cornet has
now the Brunnhilda motive."  It seems to me, in my then state of
depravity, as if the cornet had even more than this the matter with
him.

   "The second violins," continues the Wagnerian enthusiast, "are
carrying on the Wotan theme."  That they are carrying on goes without
saying:  the players' faces are streaming with perspiration.

   "The brass," explains my friend—his object is to cultivate my ear—
"is accompanying the singers."  I should have said drowning them.
There are occasions when I can rave about Wagner with the best of

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